Meta-Framework for Creating Boundaries

I find it helpful to see myself as a machine with constraints (boundaries) and levers (my own leverage like skills and abilities). If you subscribe to this metaphor, then it’s easy to imagine these two parts creating the system of you.

The issue I find is everyone I know spends far more energy re-enforcing the skills and abilities piece than the boundaries that enable the skills and abilities to be useful.

I think the ultimate meta-skill is to be able to tweak the systems around your own life and objectively see which areas need more grease or tuning.

Framework

This post is about a meta-framework, a framework to create other boundaries which in a way, are frameworks themselves.

About 6 months ago now, I began writing down when I feel like a value or principle of mine was broken. I called it my “note to self board”.

Made in Notion

However, there’s a huge issue here: I didn’t really take any explicit, scalable action. Maybe that week I’d be more mindful, but I didn’t train my system to abide by the necessary constraints to avoid breaking these values again. So, I created a framework for doing just that.

The trigger for the formation of a boundary should occur when you think “ah shit, shouldn’t have done that”. After this, the process should begin. It’s harder to just reflect about certain boundaries and write them down because so many of our values are implicit and are only uncover-able when your intuition makes you cringe a bit.

Step 1: Recognize that “oh shit shouldn’t have done that” moment

Step 2: Diagnose the scenario with 2–5 whys until you see a potential “cause, and result” relationship (the why must always involve you and not the other people or things involved. You must always maintain complete ownership of how you break your own values).

Step 3: Based on your diagnosis of the core problem, create steps to prevent the scenario from occurring again, based on certain triggers and actions.

Here’s a practical example. It’s a fairly simple boundary but by implementing it, I’m convinced I’ve saved over 15 hours over the past month.

Early August, I needed to get a refund from Equinox because they charged me $400 without me agreeing to a membership. The process of a refund was far more difficult than it should have been and I hope people reading this avoid that gym.

Anyways, I could have forgotten about the situation and paid the price, I could have kept bugging Equinox until I got the refund I deserved, or I could just be patient.

First Step: “Ah Shit” moment

The “Ah shit probably shouldn’t have done that moment” was me thinking about the choices I had on the way to work and recognizing, “Wait, I’m just wasting away my cognitive energy, going around in a circle thinking about this.”

Second Step: Keep asking “why” to diagnose the situation

First Why: I didn’t know why Equinox decided to charge me and it was stressing me out.

Second Why: I didn’t have all the information necessary.

Third Why: They weren’t responding to my inquiries

Ah, there we go.

The issue was, I didn’t have all the information necessary — I wasn’t sure if they saw the issue nor was I sure their rationale behind making the charge. These were important pieces of information for making the decision of what I do next.

Third Step: Create steps to prevent this in the future

1. Figure out what I need to know in order to make the decision
2. Get what I need to know
3. Don’t think about the decision until 1 and 2 are accomplished.

Number three is crucial and often times the most neglected.

This may come across as simple, but thinking about a choice whether it be dinner with a friend or creating a product feature is too easy to aimlessly think about. If you don’t have a boundary in place to avoid this mental purgatory between receiving the options and making a decision, you’ll just spend time there until you figure out what you need to know and then get that information.

If you think of your conscious attention as water, you can think of this frameworks as the glass.

One counter to my argument is the idea that failing to plan is planning to fail. If you plan 4 hypothetical outcomes without the information in steps 1 and 2, perhaps you’ll be more prepared for each of the outcomes, but in a world with infinite decisions and possible outcomes, after thinking about the most likely outcome, there’s high diminishing returns on each additional choice you think about.

There’s another issue with this framework. If I’m walking down the street and someone randomly decides to mug me at gun point, in my own neighborhood, there’s really not much I can do. This brings up the serenity prayer my high school teacher Mr. Boutin would say before class:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

So, in your journey to create boundaries in your own life, don’t over do it, for more is outside our control than we think. And with that, make sure you think twice next time you decide to think!

Bonus Thoughts

I want to know myself as a no-man. While it’s great to be viewed externally as someone who will do only the most important things, viewing myself internally as a no man is more important.

This means setting clear boundaries I stick by regardless of the scenario.
It must be binary with little flexibility.

You need to be aware when a boundary is broken and document that system failure. You must then diagnose, asking if it’s an issue with the system or a rare occurrence. If it’s the former, you must reevaluate your system if it’s the later you must reflect and document so you can watch the patterns of breaking boundaries form (or ideally not form).

Another barrier I found for myself is I need a minimum of one social experience per week around interesting people. I realized that I need to create the social experience I want to happen rather than rely on others to create it for me. So, I’m planning on doing weekly lunches with a new group of people each week. May randomize it or pick people intentionally, but still need to think on it.

If you’d like to get a monthly overview of the 1–3 topics I think about each month, let me know in the comments or hit me up on twitter @kobroskys